


Of Choices and Destiny

by notavodkashot



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-18
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-02-05 04:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1804744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notavodkashot/pseuds/notavodkashot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Eridan Ampora meets Shaula Serket, gets a peek at what's to come and makes his choice about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Choices and Destiny

**Author's Note:**

  * For [temporalDecay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporalDecay/gifts).



> Canon in Fi's [_A Distrait Life of Mistakes_](http://archiveofourown.org/series/38968), set roughly nine hundred sweeps after Feferi's rise to power. The introduction of Shaula Serket and the start of Eridan's hard choices. I regret nothing.

It was a nice night. 

Eridan never really lost the taste for solid ground under his feet, no matter how many sweeps went by. There was something comforting about it that the _Leviathan_ didn’t have, something nostalgic. It reminded him of Alternia, and his hive and his lusus and a thousand little things that were slowly but ever so steadily fading from his mind, like sand inside an hourglass. It had long stopped hurting to revisit the memories, and it was odd because he remembered the pain quite vividly but didn’t really _feel_ it anymore. Life in Alternia was a story, these days, one he shared with Psii every now and then. Just a story, with good parts and bad parts, and he went through the motions when he told it, scrutinizing the remains for any trace of anything other than sore fondness about it. He’d been a really stupid kid, growing up, but he wasn’t a kid anymore and he liked to think he was done growing up. He wasn’t, really, but it was nice to pretend. 

It was a nice night, so Eridan couldn’t figure out why he felt as restless as he did, hands stuck in the pockets of his pants and spine slouched slightly as he wandered a little aimlessly around the streets. He didn’t have to be here, either. So long as he bowed his head and didn’t speak out of turn, which usually meant not really speaking at all, he was welcome in Feferi’s celebrations, sitting by Karkat’s side as was his right. There had been a time he’d yearned for a place there, any place at all, so desperate he’d been to fit in. It wasn’t a bad place, either, the one he’d gotten. It was his and that was enough. Sweeps bled into decades that bled into centuries, and he found himself content, most of the time. He had a matesprit and a moirail and a kismesis and a ship and a crew, and more often than not, he never really wanted anything else. Trolls came and went, some dying, some surviving, but at the core, his life remained the same precarious balance of terribly important things that no one but him really cared about, while the Empire tumbled gracelessly down the spiral of change. 

He _should_ have been enjoying himself, either there or back in the feast. The planet was lovely, with a temperate climate and a population that seemed to be genuinely happy to have the Empress here. Eridan amused himself realizing he knew that by the details in the decorations and the general mood of the crowds. He hadn’t walked the streets of many cities, before or after joining the Fleet, but he was quietly convinced this was probably one of the loveliest in the entire galaxy, a suitable capital for the first truly autonomous colony of the Empire. There were lights everywhere, most of them fuchsia to honor Feferi, and everywhere he looked, he saw natives and trolls mingling without a second thought around stalls selling all manner of trinkets for no other reason than they could. There was a quiet, fierce joy in every face he saw, hard-earned pride and the natural euphoria that follows a release of long pent-up tension. 

Eridan, in plain clothes and nearly fifty rings hanging off his fins, chatted up a troll selling something that seemed actually edible and goaded gossip out of him, for the sake of shaking off the itch under his skin. He ate nearly two pounds of meat and decided no one in their right mind could possibly see this as anything other than Tavros Nitram’s greatest victory. He wondered if he should congratulate the man, when he invariably saw him again the next night or the one after that, considering the celebrations were scheduled to last nearly a perigee, and then wondered if Tavros would even care what Eridan thought, because Eridan sometimes forgot that outside his ship, no one really cared what he said or thought or felt. A long time ago, that made him bitter and angry, but time had a way to grind down those things, and by then he almost relished the comfort of being unimportant. 

Almost. 

He paid his tab and slipped back into the crowd, aimless and careless and troubled by his inability to figure out what he wanted. He could go back to the feast, which probably had food a million times more expensive than what he just ate but perhaps not quite as sweet and strings-free, and listen to Karkat and Sollux bicker for a few hours, all the while resisting the urge to call out Psii on his games and his own brand of teasing. Maybe make Equius sweat a bit, while he was at it, but not enough that Nepeta took offence. Or he could go back home, given the Leviathan was actually docked on the planet itself and not the station orbiting it. He could be more neurotic than usual and check on his reports and his crew, and with his luck, get roped into another drinking contest with Harper and Zebeck, just to put the fear of all three into the crew again. (Not that the crew needed any particular reminded of who called the shots and why, it was just that Saanvi was almost mellow these days and found singular amusement in tripping people’s mental categories. Saanvi was and had always been a jerk, and Eridan hated her above all because he’d grown to like her so much. Harper just watched them argue and smiled to herself at the best snide remarks and drank her share without any particular ceremony, to the point sometimes Eridan was assaulted by the blatant ashen undertones of the whole thing until he remembered undertones meant jackshit in the grand scale of things and instead made himself feel better by whining at Psii for an hour or two.) 

Or he could explore. 

Without his uniform he was just another troll mingling in the ever shifting crowds and any implications his blood might had weren’t anything he couldn’t displace with either a well-timed deadpan or a well-placed punch. He looked back at the large palace at the very center of the city, dwarfing all other buildings and glistening like a jewel among the lights. They built it for Feferi, because then Feferi would gift it back to them, to use as the seat of power for the… he’d forgotten the word, some kind of council that governed as a group, except they were voted for, instead of appointed by their higher ups, because they didn’t _have_ higher ups. The whole thing seemed eminently silly to him, but while he had a head for war and tactics and one-upping Equius in his own game, he was terrible at politics. 

Garfit told him once that so had been Dualscar, and probably every Ampora that ever crawled their way out of the brooding caverns. They were good at killing things and figuring out creative ways to kill things and, in Eridan’s very specific case, run an audit-proof ship. But none of them had ever flourished in court or lived very long, either. Atrocious tempers, poor choices, bad luck and in general a tendency to stick their feet so far down their protein chutes they ended up licking their knees. When he was feeling particularly morose, Eridan found some comfort in the notion that at least, as far as his entirely bloodline was concerned, he wasn’t that big of a failure. Most of the time, though, it just made him cranky. 

Nonetheless, he found himself entertained by the notion that if he could survive a couple decades more, not even a full century; he would officially be the Ampora to live the longest, as far as Garfit’s records went. He felt a morbid pride in that, but he didn’t know who to tell, besides Psii. Karkat never took jokes about his mortality or his propensity to land in spectacular amounts of trouble kindly, and Karkat really had enough to worry about to add his matesprit’s blatant lack of self-preservation to it. Equius would call it uncouth and spend maybe half an hour trying to justify the notion, after which he’d spend several hours trying to lecture him on everything he could think of. For crying out loud, _the man kept notes_. Eridan didn’t particularly enjoy his kismesis’ lectures, up to the last five minutes, when not even a mountain of sheer determination like Zahhak could ignore the fact he’d much rather put his mouth to a different use than to keep trying to pierce Eridan’s glassed-eyed indifference. To tell anyone else felt stupid, because it would a _private_ victory. No one would throw festivals or parades to celebrate his continued existence, and Eridan wasn’t sure he’d want them to. He wasn’t sure about a lot of things, lately, and now his thoughts were just as restless as the rest of him. 

He scoffed to himself, annoyed by the aimlessness of his mind when it didn’t have a clear objective to look forward to, and slouched away, letting the flow of people lead him where it willed. He was going to get lost but, he reasoned, it was obviously different if he _intended_ to get lost in the first place. And if worse came to worst, he could always orient himself by looking for the ridiculous spiral of sparkly pink crystal that sat atop Feferi’s palace that wasn’t really her palace anymore. Lost in his thoughts and lost in an unfamiliar city, half-heartedly drunk in their mirth, Eridan wandered around, taking in the sights and the sounds and the smells, up to the point where a hand shot out from an alley and roughly yanked him into the shadows. 

“What the—“ 

“Fuuuuuuuuck, _finally_ ,” the other troll said, a woman nearly three feet shorter than him that still had his elbow in a vice grip. Eridan blinked, as the fog in his mind cleared considerably and the sense of restlessness abated. “You’re _a lot_ more strong-willed than they said, you know? Nearly gave myself a migraine getting you here. It’d be a lot easier if I could’ve just controlled you.” 

Eridan took a step back; less because he was intimidated and more because the voice was eerily familiar and he needed to take a good look at his… attacker? Kidnapper? Stalker? Either way, one step was all he needed to make sense of her horns and take a good look at her eye. 

“Oh _fuck_ ,” he said, with feeling. 

The woman, spitting image of Vriska Serket, grinned with all her fangs. 

“If you want,” she said, hooking her thumbs in the waistline of her pants. “But I’d rather we talked first.” 

“Is there a chance I can turn around, walk away and forget this meeting ever happened?” Eridan deadpanned back, eyebrows arched slightly as he folded his arms over his chest. 

“No,” the woman rolled her eyes. “Now come on, it’s not safe here,” and then turned and stalked further into the alley, hair billowing behind her. 

Eridan was assaulted by an old memory of watching Vriska practicing the motion and several other variations, and having him judge which one looked the most intimidating. They’d been four and dumb and certain they understood how the world worked and where their place would be in it. The wave of nostalgia was near-crippling, before he let out a soft sigh and shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. 

“For you, maybe,” Eridan muttered snidely, but found himself following anyway. 

  


* * *

  


It’s a constant, in any world and any universe, that any self-respecting city must have a labyrinth of alleys and back streets that tend, by nature, to become a dark nest for all secret, hidden things. Deals are made there, and it is there where the careless wander in to die, prey of dangers they don’t understand. But if you trade in secret, hidden things and you know your way around dark corners, you can make your fortune there. 

Shaula Serket knew a thing or two, about making deals and trading in secrets and finding comfort in the shadows. She walked confidently through the maze, further and further away from the glittering lights at the heart of the city. Eridan followed after her, steps a tad less certain but no less swift, slouching as he kept up her pace. Buildings became smaller as they walked, less splendid than the ones wrapped up in the fever of the festival downtown. People were scarcer too, heads bowed with the air of those who knew better than to mind anything else but their own business. Eridan concentrated on the route, trying to ensure he’d be able to retrace his steps to go home after all was said and done, though he had a feeling things weren’t going to be that easy. Nonetheless, he tried to keep himself calm and not panic until he had a good reason to do it. 

“Here,” Shaula said, walking up to a vehicle of some sort that Eridan didn’t immediately recognize, and opening the door for him. “It’s all smooth sailing from here, trust me.” 

“Yeah, that word,” Eridan snorted, giving her a doubtful look, “the thing is—“ 

“Hey!” A creature walked out from a nearby building, vaguely troll-shaped but most certainly not a troll. Most certainly not in a good mood, either, going by their tone. “What do you—“ 

“Excellent,” Shaula said, raising a hand in their direction while shoving Eridan into the vehicle with the other one. “Our driver’s here.” 

The alien walked over to the other side, movements the stilted, unnatural jerks of someone under mind control, and slid into the pilot’s seat, starting the vehicle without a word. Eridan sat in his corner of the seat, watching Shaula through narrowed eyes as she rummaged around and found a bag of fried flakes, which she started eating without a second thought. She caught Eridan’s eyes and smirked. 

“What?” She offered him the bag. “Want some?” 

“What I want,” he said, after shaking his head, “is to know what the hell is going on, if, you know, it ain’t too much of a fucking bother.” 

Shaula laughed, shoving another mouthful of flakes into her mouth. They were chewy and spicy, and settled in her belly rather nicely. 

“ _Destiny_ is what’s going on,” she grinned, fangs digging into her lower lip. “C’mon, Dualscar, you ain’t got to be so jittery around me. You know how I am.” 

“Actually,” Eridan deadpanned, “I don’t. And also? You seem a little fucking lost, as for who I am.” He arched an eyebrow at her. “Dualscar was my Ancestor. I’m just Eridan.” 

“ _Just_ Eridan,” Shaula chuckled, mocking. “You have three of the most powerful trolls in the Empire in your quadrant grid and the scars, which don’t mind me saying so, that really make you look the part. There’s nothing _just_ about you, just like there’s nothing _just_ about me.” She slid closer to him, smiling. “You and I, we’re the same. We were destined for greatness and cheated out of it by fate throwing a tantrum. But that’s okay, I’m gonna get it back.” She scooted back to her corner of the seat and leaned against the wall, shoving more food into her mouth without a care. “And you’re going to help me make it happen.” 

“Am I, now?” Eridan snorted, just barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “You think I could get a name outta you before I do all this… helping? Because the moment there’s someone else, you going by, well, ‘you’, it’s all gonna get bloody confusing.” 

“Name’s Shaula,” she said, licking her fingers as her lips pulled into a wide smirk. “Shaula Serket. But everyone calls me Captain around here.” She clicked her tongue. “Lady Mindfang, when they start begging for their sorry lives.” 

Eridan, who was by then reasonably certain the night was about to veer into decidedly Not Nice territory, closed his eyes, groaned very softly and let his head fall against the backrest until his horns made a soft clanking sound against the wall. 

“Pus-rotten mother grub fucking tits,” he said, despairingly, and after a moment of considering his options, reached out and snatched the bag from Shaula’s hands, shoving a fistful of food into his mouth in frustration. “You found the fucking journal, didn’t you?” He bit out, as he chewed on angrily. “Fucking hell.” 

Shaula laughed. 

“Journal _s_ ,” she corrected, unrepentantly amused at Eridan’s reaction. “But yes, I did.” 

“If this is a stupid ploy to get me to wear a goddamn cape and spend the rest of my fucking life chasing you down in a re-enactment of what _Mindfang_ says our Ancestors did, I might legit shoot you in the head.” He rolled his eyes hard enough one would expect the motion to be heard. “I’m taken and ain’t looking, so fuck that.” 

Not about to be bested in the fine art of eye rolling, Shaula gave Eridan an equally dismissive gesture, reaching out to snatch her food back from him. 

“Of course it isn’t,” she said, giving him a look that called him stupid without using so many words. “That’s not how inheritance works, _d’uh_. You’re not supposed to just repeat the same mistakes your Ancestors made,” she gave him a meaningful smile; “you’re supposed to learn from them, and push forward their legacy.” 

“Well,” he said, snidely, “at least you understand that much.” 

“Oh, I understand a lot more than that, Douchefins,” Shaula grinned, arching an eyebrow at him. “I’m sure you’ve got a lot of questions—“ 

“I don’t, really,” Eridan deadpanned, just to be a dick, but Shaula ignored him entirely. 

“But don’t worry; I’m pretty sure I’ve got an answer for all of them.” 

“Oh, oh, how exciting,” Eridan said, still in the same deadpan tone, giving her a sullen look. “Are you gonna start with the meaning of life and the universe, or are you gonna build up to that first?” 

“Funny,” she snorted, and then shifted a little, getting more comfortable. “It’s a long ride, lemme tell you a story.” 

“Can I stop you?” Eridan sighed, shifting as well, until his back was pressed against the seat. 

“No,” Shaula smirked, and patted his knee. Eridan moved his leg away and it only made her snicker. “It’s not a bad story. And I bet you’re wondering how I got here anyway,” she paused, just enough to see if Eridan would take the bait, but he seemed determined to be quiet now. She rolled her eyes again, but didn’t let his recalcitrant mood ruin her spirits. “When I was a kid, my lusus needed to be fed.” There was just the smallest shift in Eridan that let her know he was listening and that he knew what she was talking about. Her smile turned wry. “I tried, honest. I really did. But shit ain’t like it was, when you were a kid. There isn’t really a surplus of lowbloods to chug into certain death anymore. So I had to get creative.” Eridan had the strange feeling that creative was a polite way of phrasing something he really didn’t want to know about. “Until I ran out of people I disliked, anyway.” She snatched the bag of flakes back, shoving a fistful into her mouth rather gracelessly, and Eridan was assaulted by how… juvenile the action was. He wondered, absently, how old this ball of Serket trouble really was. “Then I got _really_ creative and decided my lusus had to go.” She said it lightly, purposely flippant, but something in Eridan’s expression changed, something that let Shaula know she’d hit close enough to home to sink her hooks in. So she pressed on with the same airy, careless tone, keeping her eyes away from his. “It didn’t work out the way I expected it. So there I was, all of six sweeps old and against the ropes, nearly done for, when I met the Handmaid.” 

“But—“ Eridan started, and then bit the sentence in half, annoyed at himself for being interested in her bullshit, while Shaula grinned. 

“I didn’t _know_ it was the Handmaid, at the time, but these things, you put them together after a while.” She reached out to pat his knee almost comfortingly again, and all he managed was a quiet snarl that made her chuckle. “So she tells me, ‘you’re destined for greatness, Shaula Serket’, and I snorted and said, ‘tell me something I don’t know’, of course.” 

“Of course,” Eridan echoed, snidely. 

“So she offered me a deal, and let’s be fair, if you had been so far up the ropes as I was then, you’d have taken any fucking deal available to make it better, even if it meant having to suck life’s bulge for the rest of your days.” She laughed again, and it wasn’t bitter in the slightest. Eridan was mildly impressed by that. “She told me she’d take me somewhere to wait for Destiny to happen, and that somewhere turned out to be this godforsaken planet. She just… left me here, without a lusus or a clue where the fuck I was, and gave me the journals as only reason why she’d bothered with me.” 

“The Handmaid lies,” Eridan said, with the air of someone repeating well-known wisdom they don’t really understand properly but feel adequate in context. 

Shaula laughed again. 

“Of course she lies, you don’t see a lot of Destiny happening here, do you?” She shrugged. “But I figured a few things out, reading those journals. About you and my Ancestors. About what I should do.” Their ride jerked to an abrupt stop and Shaula kicked the door open with a devious grin. She reached out to haul Eridan with her. “And you’re going to help me.” 

The ground, red and sandy, spread all around them into a vast plain. In the distance, the city glowed faintly like a star, but all around them, all that was left was an arid desert. Shaula grinned and grabbed Eridan’s hand, pulling him along as she walked purposely to a particular destination. Eridan hissed air between his teeth, fins twitching as they crossed an invisible wall and the plain gave into a gaping hole, large enough for a large warship to pass through. Shaula came to a stop at the edge, where the rocks lead down into a ramp that spiraled its way to the bottom of the pit. He could see several dozen aliens of various shapes and colors amble around the catwalks around what… looked like a really bad science project gone wrong. He noticed that there was a variety of aliens, not just the stocky, pale purple natives of the planet, as he studied the group and the chances of shooting a few heads off – he assumed they had heads, even if they were aliens, because he had to hold onto a few certainties in life, like the fact everything had a head he could therefore shoot off to solve problems – and then running back and never telling anyone any of this had happened at all. 

He felt a pang of something, almost panicky, when he realized no matter where he looked, there was nothing troll-produced around the pit; which meant he was alone, now, without the constant backup of a certain bifurcated jerk to send for the cavalry if he needed it. 

“I’m tired of waiting for the destiny I was promised by the Handmaid,” Shaula said, beaming with pride as she stared at the monstrosity in the center of the pit, “the Handmaid _lies_ anyway,” she added, giving Eridan a side look that was almost conspiratorial, “I found my destiny and my oracle to help me carry it out.” 

She led him down the ramp, and he hated himself for holding her hand tight, every time they passed something huge that had disquietingly sentient eyes, and all it did was look at her and continue doing whatever it was it was busy with. Eridan tried to hold himself together, but it was proving to be somewhat a difficult endeavor, what with the threats hanging over his head. Somehow – some hysterically giggling part of his mind blamed it on audits – he’d moved past the fear and into an almost Zen-like exasperation that only wanted to go home. A voice, which sounded very much like Psii, narrated events in the back of his head, snidely pointing out every single thing that could potentially kill him in the long run. 

Admittedly, even his inner Psii shut right the fuck up when halfway down the ramp Eridan found himself face to face with a Subjugglator nun. 

He’d never seen one from up close, though he knew about them. He knew the stories and the legends, told in whispers in the Inner Rim, adding fuel to the fire that already consumed everyone’s thoughts on the Faithful flock. Karkat said they were real, that Gamzee freed them to search the will of the Messiahs anywhere the great jokes of the universe might take them. And as Eridan watched the gargantuan woman rise, he kept expecting his life to flash before his eyes and felt vaguely disappointed that it didn’t. 

“Told ya I’d find him, didn’t I?” Shaula bragged, throwing an arm around Eridan’s waist as she grinned cheekily up at the nun. “I know what I’m doing.” 

“Aye, Captain,” the nun rumbled, voice low and raspy, as if unused, and every hair on Eridan’s body stood on end at the sound. “He ain’t much to look at though, this one.” She leaned in, long ropes of hair hanging off her brow, bone braided into it jiggling and clanking as she moved, and Eridan leaned back as far as he could without actually stepping back. “ _Boo_.” 

He shrieked. 

He couldn’t help it. He scrambled backwards, for the first time summoning his rifle from the depths of his sylladex, but as he caught himself, he found the Nun cackling in delight, that strange, heavy shirt-thing she wore sliding off one shoulder and baring a breast as she pressed her opposite hand to her face, trying to hold the giggling in. Shaula smiled smugly at him, and tugged him further along, until they were standing on a ledge and he could see the thing hidden by canvas sheets protecting it from the sun. 

It was… oozy. 

And it was _huge_. It was easily as large as any of the hundreds of warships docked in the _Leviathan_ , shaped vaguely like an egg. It reminded Eridan of the half-built helm pit that decorated Equius’ quarters for nearly a century after Ximena died, writhing bits of biomass half dead from exposure and inattention, as he tried to come up with improvements for the pits. Eridan had made a very strenuous effort not to bitch about it or the smell, because he’d figured that’d be the one thing Equius would kill him for, and he didn’t want to die any time soon. The ball of unpleasant, pulsing flesh was slowly being covered in black scale-like planes; armor, if he had to guess, although he didn’t know against _what_ exactly. 

“So?” She asked, nudging his side with an elbow, “what do you think? Impressive, eh?” 

“It’s…” Eridan began, trying to hold onto his calm to see himself through this mess, but at that point he saw the thing throb and it was gross and he regretted all he’d eaten that day because this was not okay and he wasn’t okay and frankly he didn’t know how he ended up here exactly, but he wanted to go home. “I don’t even know what the fuck I am looking at, to be honest.” 

“D’uh,” Shaula said, rolling her eyes and shaking her head in disappointment, “freedom obviously!” 

“Freedom is a lot fucking oozier than I expected,” Eridan deadpanned, scowling, as he finally stepped away from her, feeling the beginnings of a rage brewing in his gut. He wanted to go home. Something in his gut told him he was stuck in the middle of something that would end badly for him, if he didn’t leave soon enough. “And not something I think I can help you with.” 

“Don’t be silly!” Shaula laughed, reaching out to hook her arm with his again, even though the touch made his skin crawl. “It’s a ship. My ship.” She looked back at the monstrous thing in the pit with satisfaction. “We’ve been working at it for sweeps now, smuggling materials and trying to make sure it stays off the grid. Now we’re just adding the last touches, it’ll be done in a few days, at the most. And then we can leave this rotten fucking Empire behind.” 

“Assuming that’s actually a ship,” Eridan snorted, wrenching his arm away so he could fold it with the other over his chest, “where do you plan on going to leave the Empire? To Truvian space?” 

“No,” Shaula smiled, sharp and sly, and in his memories, Eridan felt the ghost of Vriska rise with a vengeance. “We’re leaving,” she insisted, “across the Void Belt, into the universe beyond. To where your dumb Empress won’t find us. Where we can be _free_.” 

Eridan stared at her like she’d grown a second head. Everyone knew there was nothing beyond the Void Belt. The great mantle of psychic static and sheer blackness that cocooned the galaxy and kept the Empire constrained, even in the height of Condesce’s rule. Nothing lay beyond the Belt, nothing but darkness and fear. 

“You’re insane,” he whispered, sincerely, and began to realize he had to recalibrate his plans, if he had any hope of getting out of this mess in one piece. 

“No,” Shaula snarled a smirk, putting her hands on her hips and tilting her chin up arrogantly, “I’m just not afraid.” 

  


* * *

  


Deep below the pit, beneath a labyrinth of tunnels Eridan gave up trying to navigate five seconds in, there was a cave, dark and damp and quiet. The walls were made of the same crystal the natives used to build the castle back at the heart of the city, but raw and unpolished. Eridan shivered as he stepped in, feeling something heavy and ominous settling like a weight in his chest, but Shaula stepped forth unmoved by the danger humming in the air, self-assured and grinning wide. 

“I found him, Cardif,” she announced, voice bright and loud, ignoring the way Eridan flinched at the sound. “I found the Prince.” 

“We Saw,” a voice said, coming from the back of the cave. “Then it is all in place.” 

There was something in the sound, something magnificent and terrifying that made Eridan feel insignificant and small, and he stared in horror at the figure in the shadows, bracing himself for something monstrous to appear. What approached them, however, was just a troll. An admin, by the looks of it, though the uniform was ruinous and several decades outdated. The woman looked dry and brittle, her eyes a dull olive green and her horns a pair of loose loops atop her head. She was thin and withered, but there was something about it, something about her voice, that made Eridan feel the urge to bow his head to her. 

“This is Cardif Fenrir,” Shaula explained, completely unmoved by whatever made Eridan’s soul shiver inside his bones. “She’s a Seeress.” 

“No,” the woman, who Eridan deeply believed was very much not just a woman, interrupted, expression arrogant. “I am but a vessel to the Seer.” She bowed her head to nothing in particular, then raised her head and stared at Eridan with an unnervingly piercing look. “I am but one of the chosen many who serve the True Gods from beyond the Void Belt, those unfairly denied entrance to the cradle of the world. The Seer has foretold the truth of what’s to come, I may show you once, and no more, then you will have to make your choice.” 

“We found an alien, a while ago,” Shaula interrupted, giving Eridan that same expectant look that was starting to drive him nuts. “Called herself a Speaker for the Seer. She sought us out, me and my friends, talking nonsense. And then she showed us a vision, of us, building this ship, crossing the Void Belt, being _free_. And then she died. Dropped dead, just like that.” 

“They are denied entrance to this hollowed realm,” Cardif said, shrugging lightly, “She notices if They approach, drives Them out with her song.” 

Something in Eridan’s mind remembered a song and the screeching that never really left him. He stared. 

“You mean—“ He began, but Cardif raised a hand sharply, eyes narrowed. 

“Do not say Her name,” she snapped, voice sharp like a whip. “It draws her attention.” 

“But we’re literally across the fucking galaxy,” Eridan replied, almost on reflex. 

“You know Her,” Cardif smiled, “We have Seen it; you have heard Her Song and tasted Her Madness. Do not pretend you understand Her powers, Prince, it is not your place.” Eridan wanted to ask what this business about being a prince meant, because he could hardly be called that, now, but after such a reply, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to any of his questions. “We will invoke her fury enough, as it is, by that which we will show you. Come now,” she added, reaching out to grab Eridan’s arm and Shaula’s hand, “you must See.” 

And then they _knew_. 

They saw and tasted and smelled and felt, and it was as real as if they had gone through it already. 

The wasteland buried beneath the screams of the monstrosity rising from beneath the earth itself, and they were falling into step, laughing in despair and fighting side by side, like they had done it all their lives. 

The city gleaming with colors and lights, sinuous paths opening before them, and they, arms hooked together, walked down the stalls, talking quietly about nothing in particular. 

Shaula, older and ragged and no less vibrant than she was already, sitting in the Captain’s seat and Eridan, tired and worn and defiant, sitting on the arm rest by her side, bitching nonsense and bickering like old friends. 

The edges were blurry and undefined, but they knew themselves and they knew each other and above all they Saw, what the Seer bestowed upon them, the things that were to come. 

“The Thief must die,” Cardif said, when it was over, smiling as her eyes glowed a deep, sickly green and beneath her feet light glowed in a circle encasing a strange sigil that crackled with the power of something Eridan could only term Doom. “By your choice, if not your hand.” 

And then the screeching came, a single note of furious outrage stretching from the depths of Alternia and crossing the distance like an arrow, Eridan cried out just from the proximity, as the shard of Song impaled Cardif. Shaula was on her knees, hands fisted at her sides, snarling at nothing. The Seeress was raised off the ground by the invisible hit, but Eridan thought she was smiling as she fell, the light gathering from her body and then shooting up into the ceiling and beyond, fleeing the fury of the Singer from the Depths. 

She was dead before she hit the ground, a strangely smug expression on her face, despite the horror of her demise. 

“The Handmaid told me to wait here,” Shaula said after a moment, voice eerily quiet, “that I should resist temptation and stay, and I would be safe until the time came for her to find me and lead me to my destiny. The Handmaid lies. I found the Speaker, I saw her visions. I found a crew and found a way to build my own destiny. _Our_ destiny,” she looked at Eridan intently, searching. He was afraid of what she might find, in his face. “You saw, you felt it too. We could be happy, you and I. We could be _free_.” 

And Eridan trembled in place, because he had seen and he had felt it. He had been himself in that future, just for a moment, occupied the same space, breathed the same air, felt the same feral content. He had felt that power, that excitement. It scared him, how much he wanted it. It scared him, how much it made his skin crawl with yearning for it. 

“We just have to kill the Thief,” Shaula went on, smiling gently at the look on Eridan’s face. “You are the Prince and I am the Knight, and together, we will kill the Thief.” 

Eridan found his voice, and hesitated a moment, unsure if he really wanted to use it. 

“Who’s the thief?” He asked, after discarding every other question he realized he didn’t want the answer to. 

Shaula’s smile darkened with contempt. 

“Vriska Serket.” 

  


* * *

  


Eridan ate with the rest of the crew, ignoring the curious stares as he was granted the seat at the Captain’s left, across the table from the nun. He poked at his food and then stopped trying to be melodramatic and just shoveled the gruel down his throat, because he was starving and he couldn’t think on an empty stomach. He ignored everyone’s eyes on him and tried to keep his own from looking, from knowing any more that might poison his mind. 

He had not seen Karkat, in the Seeress’ vision. Or Equius. Or Psii. Or anyone he knew and loved and kept him grounded in being himself. Just Shaula and the blurred edges, people whose faces he didn’t recognize, who didn’t matter to him now, but perhaps would mean the world to him _then_. The future was bright and exciting and new, but he didn’t want it _now_. He wanted his friends and his quadrants and his admins and his endless piles of requisition forms. He was boring, he knew. Shaula thought so, at least. She’d laughed for hours when he snapped he was no gunslinger rogue, but a glorified paper pusher with a crippling perfectionism. 

The worst of it, though, the absolute worst of it, was that he _did_ want it. 

Part of him, the part that still remembered being important and wanted adventures and power and conquest, the part everyone had made so clear was Wrong and Stupid and that he’d worked so hard to suppress for centuries, now it had a voice, quiet and seductive inside his skull, wondering if it would be so bad, to trade his boring, stable life for the one in the vision. 

“I don’t want Vriska dead,” he said, once everyone else had left, and it was just Shaula sitting by his side, watching him. 

He expected her to yell. He didn’t know anything about her, not really, but she was so much like Vriska, that he couldn’t help but feel like he was five again, trying to offer FLARP strategies and getting yelled at because they weren’t good enough, or dashing enough, or damaging enough. He’d hated Vriska fiercely, then, because she always made him feel like he had to try harder, like he had to be better. And he’d been young and stupid and not understood what really meant to hate someone with caliginous black. (Equius’ face came to mind, and Eridan had to forcefully evict him from his thoughts, lest he lost sight of the task at hand.) 

Shaula nodded, though, almost understanding. 

“Why?” She asked, leaning on her elbows on the table, all her attention clearly focused on him. Eridan thought it was eerie, how she looked at him, but then maybe the visions had changed her mind, too. She had treated him with affectionate respect, in that glimpse of the future, nothing like the mocking forcefulness of before, and he didn’t want to say he liked it, that it felt right, now, because down that road lay terrible thoughts and even worst ideas. “I read your journal, you know?” She arched an eyebrow, looking him shrewdly, like he was a puzzle she was determined to solve, even without having all the pieces at hand. “You used to be pretty explicit about how dead you wanted her, near the end.” 

“I was a kid,” he snapped, surprised by his own bitterness and the anger beneath it, “I was just a dumb kid doing dumb shit and ruining everything I touched. And yeah, if you’d approached me then, I would have said to hell with Vriska, let’s go where no troll has ever gone before. But I’m not six anymore. I’m not—“ He remembered, disjointed and faded, memories of anger and regret, and all the mistakes he made and didn’t even recognize as such. “I’m not the person you think I am.” 

“So?” Shaula grinned, “you’ll be the person I want, one day.” 

Eridan remembered that confidence, that strange, wordless power coursing in his veins in the visions, that certainty of who he was and what he was doing and what needed to be done. 

“But not today,” he said, swallowing hard as he stood up. “I’m not… I’m not him, and I don’t want Vriska dead, no matter what the fucking stupid journals say.” He snarled, shaking in place, unable to decide if he should fight or run, stuck in between impulses. “I’m sorry, kid, but you’ve been jerking off to my godawful fucking fanfic, and _that’s all it is_.” 

He was breathing hard, toeing the line of a manic fit. He panted for breath, fists clenched at his sides and snarl firmly planted on his mouth. He was ready to defend himself, even if he knew he wouldn’t make it out of there in one piece, not so outnumbered and so close to breaking down. But he’d try, if he had to, he would try and go out with a bang, because that was the least he could do. 

Shaula didn’t stop smiling, though. 

Shaula didn’t stand up and try to fight him. 

Shaula said, “okay,” and shrugged at him. 

“What do you mean okay?” Eridan demanded, shocked and reeling, not sure what to do with all the violence he’d gathered to himself, without a target to fling it at. 

“I mean it’s okay,” Shaula said, shaking her head at him. “It’s okay if you don’t want to come with me. I’ll take you back, when the patrols are scarcer, or you can stay and watch us off too, if you want.” At Eridan’s expression, she laughed heartily. “Were you not listening? Before? By our hand, or by our choice. You can help me kill my ancestor and run away into the void with me, now, or you can stay. The how doesn’t matter, Douchefins, what matters is where we’ll end up at.” 

“Whales will _fly in space_ before I join your crew,” Eridan snarled, feeling helpless and confused. 

“I’m sure they will,” she replied, grinning in a way that made Eridan feel tempted to throw all his violence at her anyway, even if she wasn’t trying to keep him in check. “Just as I’m sure you’ll join me, when the time comes.” 

He looked at her face and her smile and the way she leaned on the table, completely at ease with herself, and he felt ill. 

“Prove it,” he said, eyes narrowed and jaw set, “take me home.” He licked his lips. “Now.” 

“You’re already home, you just don’t know it yet.” Her eyes glinted as she shrugged again. “But sure, let’s indulge your denial a bit more.” 

  


* * *

  


Eridan ran, the moment their ride came to a stop. He ran and didn’t look back, straight back to the palace, trying to dodge the crowds in the streets but not being entirely successful at not running people over. He ran and ran, up long staircases and down twisting corridors, trying to find a familiar place in the middle of so much joy and laughter and ignorance. No one had noticed he’d been gone, no one had cared. The celebrations went on just as scheduled, and of course they did, because he was just an admin, he wasn’t necessary for any of this. 

“Shoosh, now,” Psii whispered, and Eridan realized he was floating in the air, cradled in red and blue light, and relaxed as he was taken back to his moirail. He didn’t know how he’d missed the old troll sitting on an armchair by the balcony, but he didn’t care as he was deposited in his lap and found himself held in his arms. “It’s okay.” 

Eridan felt the fear and the confusion and the anger and the self-loathing rising like a wave inside him, and it all crashed down in a fit of sobbing as he buried his face into his moirail’s neck. 

  


* * *

  


Psii didn’t ask, so Eridan didn’t explain. Not in detail, anyway. He found himself wandering aimlessly around the palace, sidestepping anything that looked too official or important for him to stick his nose into, and tried to sort out his thoughts. He found himself sitting on a windowsill on one of those majestic towers, staring down a fall that would most certainly kill him if he slipped and into the gardens several floors below. He was about to leave when he saw Tavros glide into the clearing; it would be impossible to miss the massive orange wings, even from that distance. Eridan felt a pang of jealousy, watching the man land. He’d done this, the palace and the party and the peace. He’d made it possible. Maybe not on his own, but his name was going to be the one put in books and taught to generations to come. This was his success, his defiant reminder to history that he mattered and that he’d been here. 

Eridan thought of the visions and everything he’d never do. No one was going to write chapters in books about him or his life, like he’d dreamed of when he’d been a little kid. No one was going to care, when he was gone. He’d already almost died once, and no one cared. He didn’t matter at all, his thoughts and his feelings and his hopes and his dreams, they would all be forgotten once he died. And he’d always known this, before. He’d found a certain solace in it, before. But that was before the visions and the possibilities they offered. That was before he was viscerally, brutally reminded that he liked adventure and danger and thrills. That all he’d ever wanted, before life taught him better, was to leave his mark in the world. To build something for his descendants to find and be awed by. He was no one, would always be no one, and he’d been resigned to the fact. Until he met Shaula and her Seeress and he could almost taste the glory under his tongue. 

He watched Vriska walk into the clearing to meet Tavros, and he knew it was her even if he couldn’t really see clearly, because Tavros tensed and stepped back, and Eridan was bitterly amused by the idea that even the greatest in the world have their own fears. He pulled out a rifle from his sylladex, almost on a whim, and used the scope to aim at Vriska’s head. He wondered what would happen if he pulled the trigger. He wondered what they’d say. No one really liked Vriska much, these days, but then, no one had ever tried to shove her into a cell and have her culled. 

Eridan sat there, holding the rifle, finger on the trigger, for what felt like a small eternity, peering down the abyss and waiting for it to stare back. 

“Bang,” he said quietly to himself, shoving the rifle back into his sylladex, and pulling away from the window. 

He walked briskly down the corridors until he found Karkat settled in a very ostentatious office in the third floor. He shoved the papers off the desk and kissed his matesprit with something far more ravenously hungry than his lust. Karkat didn’t ask, either. Karkat fucked him into the desk, taking all the broken, bent and misshapen bits of him and fitting them back where they belonged. And Eridan bled and cried and told himself the future was his own, something far more precious than a Seeress’ dying show. 

  


* * *

  


Equius did ask, when Eridan spent a whole day trailing him, needling for a fight. But Eridan felt no remorse lying to his face, sneering and taunting, because he knew Equius knew he was lying, and it was only good and proper to lie to his kismesis’ face. He found himself breathless and thoroughly sated in an alley, scant streets away from the palace. His back burned from the echoes of the wall against it, as did everything between his legs. He purred in content, afterwards, piecing together something to wear, just because it made Equius’ mad. 

“Do you ever regret this?” Eridan asked idly, watching Equius struggle to button up his shirt without tearing it to shreds, but he was still shaken and ashamed of what he’d done, so he wasn’t having much luck. “Us, I mean?” 

Dark blue eyes stared at Eridan in surprise, searching for a clue of what he was hiding. Equius was not Psii, who knew the best way to get answers was not to ask for them. And he was not Karkat, who refused to acknowledge problems he didn’t know exactly how to solve. Equius was earnest and awkward and devoted, and he made Eridan throb with hate whenever he looked at him and refused to indulge his games. 

“Every night of my life,” he replied candidly, voice hoarse, and then reached out to kiss Eridan again like his very life depended on it. 

Eridan laughed when buttons scattered on the floor between them, desperately trying to swallow it back lest someone heard and came to investigate. 

“I hate you too,” he vowed and refused to stop smiling. 

  


* * *

  


Shaula smiled as she watched Eridan cross the perimeter of the illusion around the pit, walking over to meet him with her hands stuck in the pockets of her pants. Her crew hadn’t asked why she’d decided to wait, once the ship was completed and all the tests showed it was ready for takeoff. They knew better, by then, than to question her. 

“Came to your senses?” She asked, giving Eridan a teasing smirk. 

“No,” he snapped, and then swore under his breath, pressing a hand to his face. “I mean yes.” He glared and kicked some dust at her, “I mean, I came to see you off. I’m staying.” 

“Your loss, Douchefins,” she replied, arching her shoulders nonchalantly, “just don’t whine at me, later on, that I didn’t give you a chance to skip the boring shit and jump straight into the fun.” 

He stared at her, at her confidence and her pride, and felt a shapeless weight settle in his gut. He didn’t understand why, but it was there, taunting and wanting and if he was forced to name it, he’d say sadness was the closest he could get. 

“I don’t know who you are,” he told her, gathering all the aplomb he could, trying to sound as certain of his place in the world as she did, “I don’t know what you want. I don’t know what the future might bring, and I don’t really know what we saw means.” He scowled. “I think you’re crazy and dumb and there’s no way your ridiculous plan is going to work.” Shaula opened her mouth to retort something snide, no doubt, so Eridan hurried along. “But!” He swallowed hard. “But I wanted to see you off. To wish you good luck.” He smiled awkwardly, feeling himself unraveling at the edges. “I don’t know why.” 

“I don’t need luck, Douchefins,” she said, her smile softening by degrees into something almost awkward but not quite. “I’ve got myself.” 

They stood there, in the glare of a sun that didn’t burn like the one back in Alternia, caught between possibilities and the monumental promise of _what if?_ Eridan gasped when Shaula reached out to hug him, and it was almost like in the visions, that strange warmth, almost like stolen camaraderie. And he didn’t know why he wanted it, but he’d made his choice. 

“This feels like a dream,” he muttered, when she stepped back and he realized her smile was infectious. 

“Not a dream, _destiny_ ,” she laughed and reached out to punch him in the arm. “I’ll be waiting for you, you hear? When the time is right.” 

“Sure,” he promised, and didn’t say he’d miss her. 

It was silly, the idea he’d miss someone he didn’t really know. But it would be his secret, his and no one else’s, and as he watched the ship raise into the air, despite all logic saying it shouldn’t, he stood at the edge of the pit and felt like part of him was leaving too. He didn’t care if it was destiny or fate, he didn’t care if he would always look back at that moment and wonder if he’d made the right choice. 

He wasn’t a child anymore, lusting for adventure and the unknown, he had a place and a home, and he would stay right where he was, being who he was, and wait to see what the future might bring. 

He’d made his choice. 

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr for the verse.](http://requisitionforms.tumblr.com/)


End file.
